Beyond Alive
by snarleyow
Summary: Charlie and her brother Alex have had good fortune in the apocalypse so far. But their luck might run out when they unknowingly run into one evil tyrant. Or maybe it's a blessing in disguise? / set in season 2, possible luke/oc
1. Bad, Bad Mojo

The moans and groans of the dead never ceased in this world. Even when she was asleep, the sounds of their gnashing teeth never left Charlie's mind. Much as she refused to admit it, the world belonged to them now, and she was the prey.

The situation she found herself in at present was no different. As she held the doors of the rickety old barn together by herself, she ordered her brother to look around for something, anything, to board up the place and give her arms a rest. He frantically searched through the horse pens and among some discarded tools as Charlie put all her weight onto the double doors. Only a bit of wood separated her and dozens of lurkers that surrounded the barn, clawing at its boards and moaning their terrible moans.

"Alex, come on!" she shouted again. "Anything!"

He dug around a bit more before he finally presented her with a long rake with a metal handle. She snatched it from his hands and quickly stuck it between the door handles and took a step back from the door.

"You think that'll hold?" she asked.

"It'll have to, right?" Alex replied with a question of his own, sounding very uncertain.

Charlie nodded silently, and drug her feet towards the back corner of the barn, where she sunk down to the floor in exhaustion. She propped her arms up on her knees and rubbed her forehead with one hand. Alex moved to sit down next to her, his hand on her shoulder in a meager gesture of comfort. She patted it affectionately.

How long had it been? Charlie never thought to keep track of the days, focusing only on keeping herself and her younger brother alive. But she didn't even remember how old he was now. It was starting to get cold again, for maybe… the third time since everything started. She wasn't sure. But she guessed Alex was about 18 now. Thinking this, she buried her face in both her hands. He could have made it to his high school graduation. He could have gone to college, like she never did. He was always smarter than her. He was a good kid.

With that weak math done, Charlie herself was about 25 now. Almost 26. Her birthday was during the coldest part of winter, she knew that much. It wasn't so heart wrenching to think about her own losses, though. She didn't lose much when the world went to shit. But her younger brother lost his whole future, and she was all he had left in the world now.

"You okay?" Alex mumbled quietly.

Charlie rubbed her forehead again, feeling a headache settle in. "Yeah," she replied. "I'll survive."

They both glanced at the door and listened to the sounds coming from the other side. The loud grunts and groans were beginning to die down now, although not by much. There was still a herd outside, and although most of it paid them no mind, they needed to stay inside until it passed completely.

"I don't know if I can do this," Alex said suddenly, very quietly.

"Don't," Charlie spat sharply at him. "Don't even start saying things like that."

Alex sighed. "I'm sorry, it's just… Who are we anymore, really?"

"What?"

"I mean," Alex began, "I don't do anything I used to do. All I think about anymore is survival. Like I'm just an animal without the capacity for abstract thought. I can't even remember the person I used to be."

Charlie glanced at him, furrowing her brows together. He was always a bit less optimistic than she, but never had he said something quite like that.

"Sorry for waxing poetic," Alex laughed bitterly.

"No, it's… it's okay," Charlie replied. "I know it seems that way, and maybe it has more of an effect like that on you, since you had to kind of… grow up in all this. But you're still you."

She didn't have quite the way with words her younger brother did.

"Sometimes I think I might as well be one of the lurkers," Alex said quietly.

"Don't fucking say that, Al," Charlie spat. "Don't say that."

"Sorry."

They sat in silence for a while longer individually pondering the events leading up to their current situation. The groups they'd been with before… they weren't bad people. They had actually had good luck in finding several groups of well-off, decent human beings. But as fate in the end of the world will have it, things always fell apart one way or the other. Charlie wasn't so sure how keen on finding more people she was, but she knew Alex would rather have more human interaction than just his sister. But at the end of the day it was the two of them before anyone else. They both knew that.

"I'll stay up and watch," Alex said. "You get some rest."

"You sure?" Charlie asked.

Alex nodded. "Yeah. I'll wake you up for your turn if we can't get out of here by the end of the night, but for now, you look exhausted."

Charlie agreed to that and did as she was told, lying down to rest her head against her brother's leg. She fell asleep almost instantly, the irregular footfalls of the dead outside never bothering her.

* * *

Charlie was abruptly awoken by the sound of multiple unfamiliar voices. She sat up quickly and blinked her eyes rapidly, trying her best to whip her mind back into shape as fast as possible. Alex was already on his feet, talking to a mustachioed man and a red-headed woman who were inside the barn with them.

"Yes, sir," she heard Alex say. "We were just passing through this area and we were holed up here waiting for the herd to go on by."

"So you haven't seen anyone matching that description?" the man asked.

"No, sir," Alex replied. "Haven't seen anyone alive for a while, in fact. It's a bit of a relief to see some new faces."

Charlie stood up and walked towards her brother, running another gaze over the faces of the two people now in front of her. The woman said nothing, only held her gun in front of her waist silently.

"You two're not with a group, then?" the man asked.

"No, sir," Alex answered.

"Tell you what, boy, I like you," the man replied. "Why don't you and your sister come and join my camp? We've got plenty of resources and I can always use extra hands."

Alex lit up like a candle, but turned to Charlie for reassurance. She, however, was getting eerie vibes from these two people. The silent woman looked oddly uncomfortable to her, but the man… she couldn't put her finger on it.

"Whaddaya say, girlie?" the man asked her directly.

Now she looked at his face more closely and it hit her. The horrifying aura this man gave off. She still didn't know exactly why, but she didn't think she could trust him. Normally Charlie would want to give in to Alex's urges for more human contact, but she was too on edge around these people to do so this time. The man cocked his head at her, waiting for a response, and she looked into his eyes.

There was nothing in them.

"No, I'm sorry," she said. "We were actually planning on heading farther north. We think it'd be better to get up where it's colder and the lurkers are slower."

"I understand that," the man said, running his hand across the lower half of his face. "You wanna stick to your original plan. Not very trusting, are ya?"

"No, sir," Charlie said, a very bitter smile plastered across her face.

The man simply nodded at her and then looked back towards Alex. "Nice meetin' you kids." And then he turned around and showed himself out of the barn, the silent woman following closely behind him.

Alex chose now to protest. "Sis, really?"

Charlie threw her hands up in defense. "Look, I was getting some seriously bad mojo coming off that guy. Did you see his eyes?"

Alex smacked his own forehead in exasperation. "Are you serious? He said they had resources. And obviously they have weapons. That could have been the place for us."

"Yeah, maybe," Charlie responded, bending down to pick up her backpack from the barn floor, "but you've gotta trust me on this, okay? I never listen to my gut because of you, even though my gut is always right. Just let me this once."

Alex rolled his eyes. "Fine. But what's this plan about heading north?"

"You know, Wellington?" I said, recalling something former group members of theirs had talked about. "Now that's the place I really wanna be."

"If it isn't just a pipe dream," Alex responded sarcastically.

"Anyway," Charlie said, looping the straps of her backpack onto both shoulders, "let's get the hell outta dodge and see if we can't find something to eat, huh?"

"Sounds good."

* * *

 **A/N: hey! okay, so, i've got some splainin' to do. i used to have two other (now discontinued) fanfics up of the TV series twd (You Are The Blood and Long Road Ahead), but i have since deleted those from the site. they can, however, still be found on my TWDFF account (only because i can't log back into it hahahah), so if you want to search for them on that site, you can read them, as long as you're okay with the knowledge that they won't be continued.**

 **i'm way, waaaay more into telltale's walking dead game, because it was my introduction to twd franchise. so i hope some people will read this fic and enjoy it (and i hope i can find the inspiration to actually continue this one)! please tell me what you think about charlie and alex, also. i want to make sure i have realistic and well-developed characters (well, it's a bit early for that, but maybe as i go on tell me what you think hahaha). basically tear me apart in the reviews, please.**

 **i'm THINKING about making this an eventual luke/oc fic (whoops spoiler warning!) but i'm still not 100% concrete on that. i know there are more fics for him than most characters, so... we'll see.**

 **anyway, i hope someone in the fandom enjoys this!**


	2. Knock On Wood

The air only got chillier as the pair of siblings made their way up a slow incline through the forest. No telling what month it was exactly, but winter had definitely set in, and Alex couldn't be more upset about it.

"It's freezing," he muttered, rubbing his arms to ward off some of the cold. It was a gesture wasted.

Charlie paid him no mind as she continued on a bit ahead of him. The forest was looking a lot thinner – as it were, with all the leaves fallen onto the ground. It wasn't snowy yet, so she could still see through the spaces between the skeletal trunks to notice a clearing up ahead.

"I wish we knew how to hunt," Alex mused.

"Yeah," Charlie responded. "Sorry, I never was that kind of redneck."

Alex scoffed a small laugh and watched his own breath float in front of him.

Charlie squinted. "Just a little further ahead, you see that?"

Alex stepped up beside her and tried to see what his sister was pointing towards. "Is that a bridge?"

"Looks like it, and maybe something else," Charlie mused, squinting. "I can't see from here. Can you lend me your eyes?"

He didn't answer her, instead darting ahead on his own towards the clearing.

"Woah, woah, woah," she hissed after him. "Slow up, kid!"

He slowed his pace slightly, just enough to allow his sister to catch up to him, but he did not stop. His eyes sparkled as he looked across the ravine in the earth, a great trench connected on either side by the bridge, with a rapid river down below.

"Hand me the binoculars," he said.

Charlie rooted around in her backpack for a minute, grumbling all the while. "Quit shooting off like that before I have to knock you on your ass," she spat as she handed him the binoculars. "You don't know what could be out there."

"Could be people," Alex responded, holding the scopes up to his eyes.

"Yeah," Charlie mumbled. "That's what I'm worried about. What do you see?"

"A lift. Looks like a ski lodge," he said. "Could be a good place to spend the night."

"Sounds too good to be true," Charlie said, taking the binoculars and placing them back in her backpack. "We can scope it out, I guess. Be careful going over."

The pair of siblings quickly reached the base of the bridge, which looked passable enough, save for a few holes and broken boards. Charlie squinted her eyes and shifted her gaze across the horizon, double-checking again for anything dead or otherwise potentially dangerous. When she saw nothing of the sort, she finally stepped onto the bridge, right foot first. Alex followed closely behind, his hand wrapped around the top handle on her backpack like a leash of sorts, and they stuck to the right side.

"This is crazy," Charlie mumbled. "I can't believe there's nothing on this damn bridge."

"What?" Alex asked, his tone unnecessarily hushed, for the rushing rapids below masked any volume their voices could carry. "You expecting to find supplies?"

"No, idiot," she replied. "I just mean it's our dumb luck that nothing's pounced on us yet."

Hearing this, Alex bent down quickly to rap his knuckles against the wooden boards three times. This action earned an eye roll from his sister. "Don't jinx it," he said simply.

"I thought you were the logical smart-guy here," Charlie laughed as they continued on.

"Smart and careful are not mutually exclusive," Alex replied, the corners of his own mouth turning up.

Their quiet chuckles were cut short, however, by a figure appearing seemingly without warning on the other end of the bridge. It stalked towards them at a calm pace and it was immediately evident to Charlie that this was a living person. They stopped in their tracks as they waited for the strange man to meet them halfway.

When he was close enough, Charlie noticed the rifle in his hands and immediately threw her own up in a show of surrender. Alex took the hint and did the same.

"We don't want any trouble," Charlie raised her voice slightly.

"Boy, if I had a dollar for every time I heard that," the man replied, his tone light. "Well… guess it wouldn't do much good these days."

He reached them at last, but at least maintained a comfortable distance as he inspected the two of them. "Come on, guys," he said, "you don't have to keep your hands up."

The two of them lowered their arms at this, and Charlie spoke hesitantly again. "We're uh… just passing through, scavenging and maybe looking for a place to hole up for a bit, y'know."

"You guys need food?" the man offered, to their surprise. "We've got plenty. And, if you want, you can stay at the lodge for a bit. My group's pretty tiny, so there's more than enough to go around."

Charlie's mind was racing. As thrilled as she was about the prospect of shelter and food, alarm bells were going off in her head. Trusting strangers never came easily for her, especially when they came with out-of-this-world benefits. If anyone had had impossibly good luck in the apocalypse, it was her, and this terrified her because she knew that it had to run out one day, so everything was a gamble on her life and her brother's. She knew, despite him remaining silent, though, exactly what her brother would want.

"That's… really nice of you," she replied. "How do I know I can trust you?"

"I guess sometimes you just have to take the risk," the man replied. "You were heading up there anyways, right? I saw you two looking from across the bridge."

This threw Charlie for a loop. She glanced at his gun again, particularly at the scope on its head. This guy… had full power to shoot them, before they even saw him coming.

"Yeah… I guess risks are necessary sometimes," she mumbled.

"Great," the man smiled. "I'll take you up, then. Oh, and my name's Matthew."

"Name's Charlie. And my brother, Alex."

"Hey, thank you, man," Alex said quickly. "This is seriously nice of you."

"It's no trouble," Matthew responded, throwing his hand up in a quick gesture of humbleness. "We get visitors coming through here all the time. One couple has been staying with us for a few weeks now."

"How many of you are there?" Charlie asked as they started up the slow incline towards the lodge.

"There's me and my partner Walter, first of all. Then this older guy Kenny and his girlfriend Sarita. We've had other visitors pass through, but they all came and went."

"Why didn't they stay?" Charlie asked, afraid of sounding too suspicious but wanting to cover all her bases.

Matthew didn't seem to mind her questions. "In search of better things? Usually it's just a small group, like you guys. We give 'em some supplies or whatever they need and they're just happy to go on their way. I think when you're this far into the apocalypse it's hard to trust people."

"Even when they've shown you a great kindness?" Alex asked.

"Maybe it's like a 'get-out-while-you're-ahead' kind of thing," Matthew said, turning back to smile at the boy briefly.

Charlie could relate.

"Here we are," Matthew said as they neared the deck on the front side of the lodge. Charlie took in her view of the large building. There were a lot of windows, but they had the place boarded up securely enough. To her, it looked like a paradise on earth.

"There you are, Matt," a gruff voice resounded from the deck.

As they stepped onto the boards, Charlie saw the owner of the voice was an older man with a full beard in a baseball cap. He stood up to greet them, his smile making the wrinkles in the corners of his eyes bunch together.

"See you brought some uh, visitors," he noted, glancing at Charlie and Alex.

"You must be Kenny," Alex said, holding his hand out for the man to shake. Kenny smiled a guarded smile and took it in his own, delivering a firm and quick handshake. "I'm Alex. This is my older sister, Charlie."

"Funny name for a girl," Kenny remarked halfheartedly.

Charlie grimaced. "It's a shortening."

"Why don't you guys come in and meet the others?" Matthew said, his airy voice lightening the somewhat tense mood that had settled between them. "Walter will be happy to see some new faces."

* * *

 **A/N: i feel like i gotta apologize for my writing (this chapter particularly) being so dialogue heavy, but... that's just how i write, haha. and i guess maybe, it suits the game? i hope it isn't a pain to read or anything. anyway, clem & the others will probably show up in the next chapter. thanks for the reviews so far & i hope you enjoy!**


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